Javier Hernández did something weird on Twitter tonight. The Manchester United striker, nicknamed Chicharito, re-tweeted a story suggesting he should look to leave Old Trafford because of lack of playing time. Or at least implying that he was under-appreciated because there’s no chance of him making the first team with United.
Javier Hernández, a Mexican International, was an unused substitute in the Red Devils’ 3-1 win at Fulham yesterday and has spent the whole season as second banana to Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie. He’s been in the media a lot lately; he gave a very emotional and in-depth interview to Telemundo, where he discussed the fact that he almost quit football.
Now back to Javier and social media Chicharito re-tweeted a Sky Sports article, but later undid the retweet.
It contained quotes from his Mexico team-mate Carlos Vela who said “there will be big teams in England and Europe wanting him” should Javier Hernández leave United.
What was Javier Hernandez trying to tell us by doing that? He has 2,500,000 followers, so he’s well aware that anything he tweets will be heard by multitudes of people. He knows he has a strong social media voice. That he feels under-appreciated and wants to leave? That he feels there will be a lot of demand for his services elsewhere? Or was this just something benign that we shouldn’t read anything more into? No way. Of course Chicharito did that to get attention. Then he quickly realized he made a mistake, because he undid the retweet.
At least Javier Hernandez did not do the standard issue, cliche “I was excused” by athletes. We’ve seen that one enough already.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the world; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS